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Racism: In Historical Context

Furthermore, the Ancient Egyptians used to call themselves â€œKmt," meaning â€œBlack people" in the Ancient Egyptian language; the word â€œKm" means â€œblack". When we compare â€œKam" ( the Black man) with â€œKmt"and â€œKm", we find out that the three words etymologically share exactly the same root.

[Race Matters: Commentary]

During the EU-African summit held in Lisbon, Portugal, on 7-9 December, 2007, African leaders and their counterparts of the EU agreed upon striking up a “new partnership” between Africans and Europeans based on mutual respect.

This agreement can only be relevant if light is shed on grounds of racism.

Is there any skin color superior to others? Is there any race superior to others? Many White people reckon that they belong to a superior race, and that their White skin color is superior to all other colors.

Racism can be traced back to Western Europe, the heartland of the ideology of the superiority of the White man over the other races. One of the earliest prominent racist advocate was the Frenchman Gobineau, who thought that the superior human ought to have a white skin color, blue eyes and white hair. He taught that people of color were inferior.

The German “philosopher” Hegel claimed that Africa, the Black continent, didn’t have any history at all. Kant, the other great German “philosopher,” suggested that Blacks represent the degeneration of human kind. That is why he assigns or parcels them out a lower rung in his anthropological stargazing.

Adolph Hitler, jealous, angry, envious, and repudiated famously refused to hand over the Gold medal to the great U.S. athlete Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, because he had publicly mortified the Nazi regime by outperforming German athletes. In his book, “My Fight” Hitler wrote that humans with blue eyes, white skin and hair, were superior to others and were masters.

All these racists never offered any objective evidence for their assertions. These claims have never been substantiated; they are not based on facts, historical scholarship, or values. Rather, they are merely grounded on wishful thinking, figments of imagination, and trumped up stories, in most cases to justify and rationale plunder, enslavement, colonization, and privilege.

What’s more, it has been proven scientifically that the “Black man” is biologically the human original norm or standard. For example, In poring over albinism, we learn in biology that folks with a white skin color and hair, slightly blue or red eyes have albinistic features. Every biologist knows that albinism is a hereditary illness, actually it’s a genetic abnormality or defect because the body of albinos doesn’t have the tyrosinase, that enzyme which converts and synthesizes tyrosine into melanin or dark pigment. Now then, melanin protects from ultraviolet radiation and from skin cancer.

Therefore, the white skin lacks that melanin - in the case of total albinos or blonds with blue eyes, white skin and hair - or at most only has it in a very tiny quantity - in the case of partial albinos or common white people.

The words “albinism” and “albino” stem from Latin “albus” meaning “white”. Even white humans with Black hair are partially “albinos”. All biologists regard all albinos as deviation from the norm or standard, which is the Black skin color.

The Black epidermis is the norm or the standard because the melanin it contains protects and guards people of color from and against the dangerous and harmful ultraviolet radiation and skin cancer, while the white skin color is genetically prone to skin cancer, and lacks any protection from harmful ultraviolet radiation. That is the reason why many White people love getting a suntan; they want to get a darker skin color.

Even king Solomon explains in his Canticles – The Song of Solomon - that the Black skin color is beautiful and represents the norm. Hear him: “I am very dark, but comely/ O daughters of Jerusalem/like the tents of Kedar/like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am/ swarthy/ because the sun has scorched me.” Obviously the woman mentioned in this song was living in the midst of predominantly fair-skinned or White people, who would find her skin color unusual.

Moreover, it’s generally accepted that Ham or Kam, son of Noah, who survived the flood described in the Bible, and his four sons Misr, Kush, Put, Canaan are the ancestors of all people of color worldwide. Now then, Kam and his sons were the first to be mighty ( Nimrod) and to establish the first kingdoms and civilizations in the world. They founded Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Phoenicia.

That is why the scholar Martin Bernal argues that the classical civilization, videlicetthe Greek-roman civilization, has Afro-asiatic roots. Before him, Cheikh Anta Diop who was an African physicist, historian and Egyptologist, proved in his scholarly writings that Ancient Egypt was founded by Black people. The French historian Michel Mourre also contends that the founding dynasty of Ancient Egypt was Black.

In 1998, the German egyptologist Dietrich Wildung, who doubles as director of the Egyptian museum of Berlin, stated: “It is crystal-clear that the cultural explosion in Ancient Egypt had its roots in Black Africa.” He then spoke of a “paradigm shift” brought about by this finding of his. It should be noted that the Arabs who now live in Egypt are descendants of the Arabs who moved to Egypt in the 7th century AD.

Even the Good Book, the Bible, confirms in the psalms 105 and 106 that Egypt was the country and land of Kam the Black man, the ancestor of all people of color.

Furthermore, the Ancient Egyptians used to call themselves “Kmt”, meaning “Black people” in the Ancient Egyptian language; the word “Km” means “black”. When we compare “Kam” ( the Black man) with “Kmt”and “Km”, we find out that the three words etymologically share exactly the same root.

Many White scholars who are knowledgeable about these historical and biological evidences pertaining to the standing of people of color, at times resort to counterfeiting these proofs so as to play mind-games with people of color, to brain-wash all humans, and to boost the morale of White people, so they would always have the impression that they are superior.

They want to encourage White people to act upon the saying “Attack is the best defense”. That is why some White folks would cook up stories about the alleged “superiority of White people”, pelt people of color with such stories so that people of color wouldn’t remind them of the historical and biological evidences. And that is the source of racism, often used by those who are eager to hoodwink people of color and whites alike, and to exploit them.

Most people of color have the opportunity to turn the tables since they have incontrovertible and positive evidences that they may produce to regard White people as biologically subnormal or substandard, but they don’t resort to such means, worthy of childish flibbertigibbets.

They want the human rights of all men and women be respected, irrespective of the fact that their epidermis contains melanin or not; they just want to live in a global world where everyone would be judged according to “the content of his character” for a peaceful world, because they believe that “variety is the spice of life”.

He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Frankfurt/Main. He holds a Postgraduate and Higher Degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of Mainz, Germany, a Master’s degree of Arts in German studies, Philosophy and Romance studies from the University of Frankfurt, a Bachelor’s degree of Arts in German studies, Linguistics, and General and Comparative Literature from the University of Yaounde, Cameroon.

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